Award-winning

Jodie Lau, a colleague at the Arizona Republic with whom I worked a few years back in a Maynard Institute program, writes to say that she has established an award named after me.

Now with Gannett's Phoenix design studio, she has established a weekly headline writing award that will culminate in a monthly award. The award is the JohnnyMac, and the trophy is a stuffed leopard wearing a polka-dot bow tie.

I might not be the most wholesome influence on headline writers, having once published at The Cincinnati Enquirer the headline "Every little breeze seems to whisper feces," about a residential neighborhood in Detroit troubled by odors from a sewage treatment plant.

But I have written to Jodie saying that I am flattered and honored and she is not to give the award to anyone who puns on people's names in headlines.